English Spoken Here

California legislators have made seven attempts in the last 10
years to overhaul the state's bilingual education
regulations.

At George Washington, students in the bilingual classes are taught
reading, writing, social studies, math, and science in Spanish. This
takes place in the morning; after lunch, the students are mixed with
English-speaking students for the rest of day, with instruction
conducted in English. "As they move up through the program," says 1st
grade teacher Susan Hale, "more of their core subject areas are moved
into English."

This morning, in Room 19, Hale is sitting next to a blackboard while
her students—dressed in red, white, and blue uniforms—sit
on the floor in a small semicircle. The teacher has asked the children
to think of words that describe el verano—summer. When
they have enough words, Hale will help them compose a poem.

Hale writes on the board, "El verano.
¿Cómo es?"

The students shout out words in quick succession.

"Caluroso."

"Bonito."

"Divertido."

"Feliz."

"Bello."

"Verde."

"Fantastico."

Children learn best, Hale says during a recess break, when they are
taught in their native language. "Otherwise," she says, "they'll be two
or three years behind their peers. And they'll always be playing
catch-up." Yes, she admits, the children want to learn English, and
they pick it up fast. "But we have to give them time to develop skills
that allow them to process the information." The immersion method, she
believes, simply doesn't do that. "These children need to be
mainstreamed," she says, sounding a lot like Gloria Tuchman. "They need
to be a part of the majority culture. They need to become productive
citizens somewhere down the road, in English. But this is the bridge
that gets them there. And without the bridge, we're asking them to jump
into 10 feet of water and telling them they have to swim."

Hale and her colleagues are worried about the proposed initiative
and what it could mean for their program at George Washington. "No one
would put their child into a Chinese-only classroom and expect them
from kindergarten on to be successful if their child didn't speak
Chinese," Hale says, "and yet that's what we may be asking of these
children if the initiative passes."

"I think the unfortunate situation is that the public is not getting
the information about bilingual programs that do work," says Eilene
Marston, who teaches 4th and 5th grades at the school.

"I don't think the initiative process is the right place for setting
school policy," adds principal Baca.

Of the 31 students in Miho Tyszka's 4th grade classroom, all entered
kindergarten speaking little or no English. Now, their conversation
skills are good, but they still need work with reading and writing.
"They gain confidence quickly," Tyszka says. By the end of the school
year, she adds, they will be doing just as well as the children who
only speak English.

Nine-year-old Leticia Castillo has a mother from El Salvador and a
father from Mexico. She wants to be a doctor or a teacher when she
grows up. "I'm learning English," she says proudly. "I'm doing good. I
still have to practice a little spelling some words. In my home, I
speak a little English with my parents and a lot of Spanish so I won't
forget. And with my brothers only in English."

She offers to read a report she wrote on the desert, which her
teacher has posted on the wall. Speaking in a clear, Spanish-accented
voice, she says: "In the desert there are many things. In the desert
the plants don't need much water. The cactus keeps water in its skin
because it has thick skin. Animals in the desert come out during the
night because it is not that hot and they listen better. It is so hot
you can cook an egg on a rock. All the animals are adapted to the
hotness. It is so hot and sandy that some plants grow after it rains.
The next day it is dry again and the woodpeckers drink water from the
cactus."

Baca wishes critics of bilingual education would come visit her
school to see what a successful program looks like. Recently, she even
wrote an open letter to the local newspaper, the Burbank Leader,
inviting Ron Unz to come take a look. So far, he hasn't taken her up on
the offer.

Not all bilingual education programs in the state of California,
however, are like the one at George Washington Elementary School.
Qualified bilingual teachers—even though they are paid up to
$5,000 more per year than regular teachers—are hard to come by,
so many districts simply find ways to make do with whatever staffing
they can get. "Only about a third of the classrooms referred to as
bilingual are actually taught by a credentialed teacher," notes
Alexander Sapiens, an assistant professor of bilingual education at San
Jose State University. "Thus, many bilingual education programs have
not succeeded because they were not adequately designed or
implemented."

California legislators have made seven attempts in the last 10 years
to overhaul the state's bilingual education regulations, which
officially expired in 1987 but have been kept alive by the state
department of education. Last year's bill, sponsored by state Senator
Alpert and state Assemblyman Firestone, would have allowed districts to
fashion whatever bilingual education approach they believe works best
while at the same time requiring districts to measure the educational
progress of California's 1.4 million LEP students, something that has
not been done before. But in September, the bill was blocked by
Democrats in the assembly. Ron Unz seized on the bill's failure to
further his cause. "It looks like the initiative process is the best
route to achieving a solution," he told a local reporter.

"There's a lack of accountability and consistency in California's
bilingual programs," admits Laurie Olsen, executive director of
California Tomorrow, an advocacy group that looks at immigration
issues. "Does it need attention? Yes. But the Unz initiative doesn't do
that."

'This untested proposal ... would impose a single approach upon
all schools and teachers in this diverse state.'

Laurie Olsen,
opponent
of the Unz intiative

Olsen is co-chairwoman of Citizens for an Educated America: No on Unz.
Representing many of the state's education groups—including the
California Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers,
the Association of California School Administrators, and the California
Association for Bilingual Education, among others—the coalition
launched a counterattack against the initiative in November. At a press
conference in Sacramento, Olsen called the proposed measure an
"unreasonable and extreme experiment."

"This untested proposal," she said, "drafted by someone with no
background in education, would impose a single, cookie-cutter approach
upon all schools and teachers in this diverse state."

Olsen says the initiative can be defeated "once we get the message
out to California voters." She's unconcerned by the results of the Los
Angeles Times poll. "It's still way too early in the game," she
says.

But Gloria Tuchman is so confident of the initiative's victory in
June that she's already looking beyond California. "This is only the
beginning," she says. "It's going to spread to other states. I know
that. People all over the country are waiting to see what's going to
happen in California."

The initiative, Tuchman says, is the last resort in her struggle to
stamp out mandated bilingual education. The former school board member
has grown wary of the legislative process; it's time for the people to
call the shots.

"I will not trust the politicians in Sacramento to take care of the
situation," she says. "I've given up on that. There are always
compromises you have to make, and I won't do that at the expense of the
children."

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